Even though I forgot ever adding Skimlinks code to Traffic Generation Café, it never forgot to quietly work in the background and send me an affiliate commission paycheck each and every month – without me lifting a finger.

What, on earth, is Skimlinks?

FULL DISCLOSURE

I DON’T write about making money online. EVER. For various reason.

Yet, I wrote this post. And stand behind it.

What Is Skimlinks?

Skimlinks is a content monetization network that allows you, the content creator, to passively and effortlessly monetize your content.

How does Skimlinks work?

You do what you do best – create content.

Once your content is published, Skimlinks does what Skimlinks does best: turns any product, brand mention, or merchant link into its equivalent affiliate link.

With Skimlinks, you get instant access to over 24,000 merchant affiliate programs without the hassle of network sign-ups, approvals, or creating affiliate links.

Let me show you how Skimlinks works step by step.

How does Skimlinks work: STEP 1

Add normal product links to your content.

How Skimlinks works: STEP 2

Your links look normal – your readers see exactly where they are going and trust the link.

How does Skimlinks work: STEP 3

Skimlinks automatically turns your links into their equivalent affiliate links on clicked, via a brief redirect to the Skimlinks servers.

How does Skimlinks work: STEP 4

Every time your readers click through a product link that Skimlinks is able to affiliate and make a purchase, you’ll earn a commission on the sale.

How Much Can You Earn with Skimlinks?

How much comtent (COMmercial conTENT – content with links to products / retailers) do you write?

How compelling is your comtent? Is it click-worthy?

How much traffic do you get? How click-happy are your readers?

Take Traffic Generation Café, for instance. Not much comptent here, but even with a few sporadic mentions of merchants and products, I still get some passive income, as you saw from the screenshot above.

If you, however, run a website that lends itself nicely to publishing comptent (COMmercial conTENT)… well, the sky’s the limit!

…Or 75% of the sky, to be more accurate. 🧐🤣 Skimlinks keeps the other 25%.

Entirely fair, if you ask me – ESPECIALLY, if you are earning a big fat ZERO without Skimlinks, right?

Let’s take a closer look at your potential earnings with Skimlinks. Or without Skimlinks, I should say.

How much could you earn WITHOUT Skimlinks?

Many publishers ask, “Why use Skimlinks, if I could create affiliate links on my own?”

With Skimlinks, you earn up to 110% of what you would’ve earned if you managed your affiliate links yourself.

And yes, Skimlinks does take 25% of that.

However, with Skimlinks, you have access to Preferred Merchants – merchants who have agreed to pay Skimlinks their cut above and beyond your commissions.

But wait… you can use Skimlinks on social media!

That’s right – Skimlinks lets you monetize your content on other platforms.

No matter where you post, whether on Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest, you can use Skimlinks browser extension link shortener to connect your audiences across channels and earn from your product and brand recommendations.

Just one of Skimlinks WOW factors… 😉🤩

Skimlinks saves time. Time = money.

Let’s face it, you won’t tediously code each and every link you could on your own… not to mention the links you couldn’t since you don’t have access to their affiliate programs!

And even if you do make a bit less with Skimlinks, the amount of time it saves you, plus the automatic addition of affiliate links when you forget, pays for the difference above and beyond.

IMPORTANT: Affiliate marketing and disclosures

When there exists a connection between the endorser and the seller of the advertised product which might materially affect the weight or credibility of the endorsement, such connection must be fully disclosed.

Wow, Skimlinks looks exciting, I have been using INfolinks to earn extra from in-text ads but it has limitations and no affiliate Camgiamns.
I was aware of another company called viglink, but as i see Skimlinks sharing more revenue and have more affiliate Programs, Its great to give it a try..

This is the first time I’m learning about Skimlinks. And they live up to the name – they skim links! 😀

I think this is a smart way to earn from your blog if you are a passionate blogger sharing valuable content almost every day. It can really help you start earning affiliate commissions in such a simple way.

Excellent and very informative resource on Skimlinks. You have made it very clear and easy to follow. Sounds good, it turns normal links into affiliate links. Well, I’m using VigLinks, however I will try this out, it seems to be yet another good way to earn some extra income. Thanks Ana for this wonderful review and tweeted 🙂

Hi Ana, even though I’ve taken a break off blogging, I’m just stopping by to say Happy Holidays to all my blogging friends. Thanks for all the support, comments, visits etc. I hope you have fun with your loved ones and I wish you all the best for 2013.

The most exciting news is not having to keep track of multiple affiliate links, which I don’t really do, except for Amazon. The second most exciting piece of news is discovering that I can caffeinate myself by rubbing a glowing gel all over my body.

I will certainly be checking this plugin out – I have written a few posts that contain links to Amazon books and although its fairly simple to construct this way looks a lot easier and a big time saver.

I think integrating deeplinks takes forever in a blog post and can be so tiresome, I almost want to stop publishing! Instead, I will take your exceptional advice and integrate skimlinks instead, thanks a lot for sharing.

Its really good to use Skimlinks if they genuinely pays even the 75% commission for all the sales made through affiliate links on my content. We dont have to worry about maintaining the affiliate account & managing the different products on my website. Thanks for explaining all about Skimlinks.

Extremely thorough review of Skimlinks. It sounds like a very powerful resource. I have heard of Skimlinks before but I haven’t really looked into it. After reading your post, I am definitely going to have to give it a shot. Thanks Ana.

Wow! This was really interesting! (like all the articles I’ve read of yours in the last couple of days!). I’ve never realised how easy it was to implement.

I agree with Lisa, integrating deeplinks takes forever in a blog post and can be so tiresome, I almost want to stop publishing! Instead, I will take your exceptional advice and integrate skimlinks instead.

Hi Ana, Brilliant idea to start taking advantage of the holiday shopping frenzy by using Skimlinks.
I don’t shop for gifts during the holidays like you – but I do like to cash in on the those deals.
I first heard about Skimlinks when Pinterest was using them but I know that partnership ended a few months back. They are great people to work with though and they offered a free ebook called Monetizing Online Forums written by Patrick O’Keefe that was pretty awesome.

Smaz from Skimlinks here. Good news- you can still sign up and use Skimlinks! No need to cancel the networks you’ve already signed up with- we don’t touch the links that you’ve already affiliated, we ‘ll just convert the ones that aren’t.

Thanks for taking the time to do this in-depth review, Ana. I wouldn’t have taken the time to look at the service on my own but I appreciate having an understanding of it and how to effectively implement it.

For myself, I don’t want to be distracted away from some other irons in the fire right now. But Skimlinks would be an excellent idea for some of my small business coaching clients to use right now. I’ll point them in the direction of your affiliate link when I mention it.

On the other hand, that Datafeedr Random Ads plugin you mentioned is something I can make use of right now. I’ve been looking for something for awhile and haven’t been happy with what I’ve found so far. I’ll give it a look. Thanks for pointing it out 🙂

But yes, being a freelance writer also, I somewhere do agree with Anne that we earn more through our writing projects than the affiliate links and other stuff we have on our blog (though I really don’t have very many). I agree, we really don’t and get down to doing the selling or promoting the products the way it should be done, but that’s because some of our blogs aren’t that ways. But I love your idea of having a separate shopping page for that.

Thanks for sharing, and you surely made me re-think and gave some wonderful ideas here as well. 🙂

Smaz from Skimlinks here. As you’re going to be researching our products and services, I thought you might want to check out this short slideshow which summarises the advantage of choosing to use Skimlinks: http://slidesha.re/RQZeRC

I’ve got ideas for a couple of niche blogs/websites that I would like to get going in 2013, and I really wasn’t sure how I was going to go about monetizing them without having to spend a lot of time researching products in those niches.

Well done Ana. Quite a thorough review about Skimlinks. I actually used Skimlinks and Viglink in the past, but unfortunately did not really work for me. I do have a friend who is quite happy with it (SL that is) and as you said, it is pretty much an excellent alternative for the lazy people, lol.

I have used skimlinks on one of my blog but not got any good results may be because of traffic and niche but I liked the concept which can help you increase your earning without using any space on your website. It can be much better then PPC intext advertisements.

I usually get a catalogue towards the end of the year and tell the kids to look through it and come up with 10 of the things they most want. They know they’re only going to get 5 of the items (each), so what they get is still a surprise. This works very well for us. We don’t necessarily get the pressies from that catalogue either – as long as the items match, that’s the important bit.

About skimlinks – I found out ages ago that I’m really not good as an affiliate. I used to have loads of them on my blogs and made no money whatsoever. I still have Amazon links/widgets. The plan is that as soon as I make their payout limit ($100.00), I’ll remove all their links from all my blogs.

The irony is that I’ve been an Amazon affiliate for about 4 years – and still haven’t made the limit! I can now make $100.00 from two hour’s editing/writing work. I so can’t wait to have a clean, clear blog, free of all affiliate links!

I know that affiliate works for thousands of bloggers. I know that they work for you as well, Ana. And good on you for that! For me, however, nothing happens. I’ve accepted this now 🙂

Well, I’ve never seen a check from them yet, Anne, but at least Skimlinks limit is only $10, even if it’s Amazon earnings.

I do understand what you mean though. If it doesn’t work for your readers, then you need to come up with a better monetization model. You’ve got plenty of traffic; there’s got to be a way to monetize it.

I started using SkimLinks on the weekend after Thanksgiving last year. Today is February 24 – so it’s been almost exactly 3 months since I started.

My Skimlinks total is just a tad over $1,000 in total earnings since I started (but I’m expecting 25% of that to be taken for their commissions). I’m a bit annoyed that it takes up to 4 months to get paid. I haven’t been paid, yet, either. It appears that money earned in November gets paid at the end of February.

I think there’s potential there – but trying to make your way through their system and finding out what merchants pay is downright time consuming and energy-sucking, IMO.

I found one merchant that paid 25c a click for quite awhile.. but now my reports still show lots of clicks (hundreds) but I’m not seeing commissions on them.

Then I had a different merchant that paid about $4 a sale (on a $25 item) so I promoted that all over the place and made a good chunk of that $1,000 from them … ONLY to get an email a week or two ago that said it was against that merchant’s rules to promote them on forums (which I legitimately did- I used forums that I participate in for a certain niche as a hobby). So they told me that my links made that way wont be monetized – so not sure I’m even getting half or even 25% of that $1,000+ that I thought I earned.

So even if you do find the right things that seem to work- it sure seems that there are lots of potholes to fall into on the journey. 🙁

It’s certainly not much fun to be told that all your hard work was for nothing due to marketing guidelines. However, the same goes for any merchant out there; even if we go through their own affiliate program, we are still obligated to read, understand, and follow their rules.

I will for sure be adding Skim links to 2 of my smaller review type blogs, those darn links take ages to add, expecially when trying to build deep links through affiliate window and CJ.

I’ve noticed a lot more clicks on my ads now that I am giving my readers what they want instead of what I thought they needed – big difference!
Just as you can’t sell burgers to vegetarians or salt to slugs, be very wary of going too far the wrong way and trying to sell Ice to Eskimos or potatoes to the Irish!

A note on the affiliate links – pinterest will strip any attached to images, and you will also loose all google image searches, I learnt this the hard way last week….
I was getting around 200 hits a day on an image of a lightbulb on showmesomemoney, but it wasn’t targetted traffic and they were just putting my bounce rate up, so I had a little play with it and linked it to a clickbank graphics package – the image disappeared from Google search within about 12 hours!